and shoved them on the floor of the closet, and stalked off to the shower in his stocking feet, leaving sticky footprints. He would stay in the shower, grunting and slapping his body, for a long time, splashing water and muttering under his breath, until he shouted so that the house shook: “Maria! Are you asleep?” He had to wait until his father had washed and seated himself at the table, where a pint bottle, a” bowl with thick soup, and bottle of catsup were ready for him. Wait until he had slurped up all the soup and started on the pork and beans, and then he could creep out into the light, climb up on his lap, and ask which shop steward and which engineer he had drowned in vitriol that day.
Everything around him was white hot, and he was dizzy from the cruel dry heat, the exhaustion, and the unbearable pain of his skin blistering at the joints; it seemed to him, through the hot haze that was enveloping his consciousness, that his skin was crying out to him, begging him for peace, for water, for coolness. The memories, worn to the point of unrecognizability, were crowding each other in his swollen brain, knocking each other over, blending, tumbling, mingling with the white hot world that was flaming before his half-closed eyes, and they were all bitter, and they all evoked self-pity or hatred. He tried to fight the chaos, to summon from the past some sweet mirage, a feeling of tenderness or cheerfulness. He squeezed out the fresh laughing face of Guta from the depths of his memory, when she was still a girl, desired and untouched, and her face appeared, but was immediately blanketed by rust and then twisted and deformed into the sullen face of Monkey, covered with coarse brown fur. He struggled to remember Kirill, that sainted man, his swift, sure movements, his laugh, his voice, which promised unheard-of marvelous places and times, and Kirill appeared; but then a silver cobweb exploded on the sun and Kirill was no more, and Throaty’s unblinking angelic eyes stared at Redrick, a porcelain container in his big white hand… The dark thoughts festering in his subconscious knocked down the barrier his will tried to create and extinguished the little good that his memory contained, and it seemed that there had never been anything good at all, only ugly, vicious faces.
And during all this time, he never stopped being a stalker. Without realizing it, he recorded somewhere in his nervous system the essential information: that on the left, at a safe distance, there was a jolly ghost over a pile of old planks—it was quiet, exhausted, and so the hell with it; on the right there was a slight breeze, and a few steps later he saw a mirror-smooth mosquito mange, with many arms, like a starfish—far away, no danger—and right in its center, a flattened bird, a rare sight, since birds did not often fly over the Zone; and right by the path there were two abandoned empties—apparently Buzzard had dropped them on the way back, fear is stronger than greed. He saw all of this and took it into account, and Arthur had only to stray a single foot from their path for Redrick’s mouth to open and the hoarse warning to fly automatically from his throat. A machine, he thought. You made a machine out of me. The broken rocks at the edge of the quarry were getting closer, and he could see the fanciful designs made by rust on the cabin’s red roof.
You fool, you, Burbridge, Redrick thought. You’re clever, but you’re a fool. How could you have trusted me? You’ve known me for so long, you should know me better than I know myself. You’re getting old, that must be it. Getting dumber. But what am I saying, I’ve been dealing with fools all my life. And then he pictured Buzzard’s face when he discovered that Arthur, his sweet Artie, his one and only son, that his pride and joy had gone into the Zone with Red after Buzzard’s legs, not some expendable punk. He pictured his face and laughed. When Arthur turned his frightened face to look at him, Redrick went on laughing and motioned him on. And then the faces crawled across his consciousness again like pictures on a screen. Everything had to be changed. Not one life or two lives, not one fate or two—every link in this rotten, stinking world had to be changed.
Arthur stopped at the steep descent into the quarry, froze in his steps, straining to look down and into the distance, extending his long neck. Redrick joined him. But he did not look where Arthur was looking.
Right at their feet the road into the quarry began, torn up many years ago by the treads and wheels of heavy vehicles. To the right was a white steep slope, cracked by the heat; the next slope was half excavated, and among the rocks and rubble stood a bulldozer, its lowered bucket jammed impotently against the side of the road. And, as was to be expected, there was nothing else to be seen on the road, except for the black twisted stalactites that looked like fat candles hanging from the jagged edges of the slope, and a multitude of black splotches in the dust, as though someone had spilled bitumen. That was all that was left of them, it was even impossible to tell how many there had been. Maybe each splotch represented a person, or one of Buzzard’s wishes. That one there was Buzzard coming back alive and unharmed from the basement of Complex #7. That bigger one over there was Buzzard getting the wriggling magnet out of the Zone unscathed. And that icicle was the luxurious Dina Burbridge, who resembled neither her mother nor her father. And that spot there was Arthur Burbridge, unlike his father and mother, Artie, the handsome son, their pride and joy.
“We made it!” Arthur rasped deliriously. “Mr. Schuhart, we did make it, after all, right?”
He laughed a happy laugh, crouched down, and beat both fists as hard as he could on the ground. His matted hair bounced ridiculously, and dried clumps of dirt flew in all directions. And only then did Redrick look up at the ball. Carefully. With caution. With a hidden fear that it would turn out wrong—that it would disappoint him, evoke doubts, throw him from the cloud that he had managed to scramble up on, and leave him to wallow in filth.
It was not golden, it was more a copper color, reddish, and completely smooth, and it shone dully in the sun. It lay at the foot of the quarry’s far wall, cozily ensconced amid the piles of accumulated rocks, and even from that distance, he could see how heavy and massive it was, and how solidly it lay in its place.
There was nothing disappointing or doubt-inspiring about it, but there was nothing to inspire hope either. For some reason, his first thought was that it was probably hollow and that it should be hot to the touch from being in the sun. It obviously did not glow with its own light and it obviously was incapable of floating up and dancing in the air, the way so many of the tales had it. It lay where it had fallen. Maybe it had fallen out of some monstrously huge pocket or had gotten lost, rolled away during some game between some giants. It had not been carefully placed here, it had been left behind, littering up the Zone like all the empties, bracelets, batteries, and other rubbish remaining after the Visitation.
But at the same time, there was something about it, and the longer Redrick looked at it, the clearer it became that it was pleasant to look at it, that he wanted to go up to it, to touch it, pat it, and suddenly the thought came to him that it would be good, probably, to sit down next to it, or even better, to lean back against it, close his eyes, and think, reminisce, and maybe just dream and drowse and rest…
Arthur jumped up, tore open all the zippers on his jacket, took it off, and threw it down smack at his feet, raising a cloud of white dust. He was shouting something, making faces and waving his arms, and then he put his hands behind his back, and dancing a jig, headed down the slope. He was not looking at Redrick any more, he had forgotten Redrick, he had forgotten everything. He was going down to make his wishes come true, the little secret wishes of a blushing college student, of a boy who had never seen any money beyond his allowance, who had been beaten mercilessly if he had a whiff of alcohol on his breath when he came home, and who was being groomed to be a famous lawyer, and in the future, a cabinet minister, and in the distant future, and as his greatest prospect— president. Redrick, squinting his swollen eyes against the blinding light, silently watched him go. He was cool and calm, he knew what was about to happen, and he knew that he would not watch, but it was still all right to watch, and he did, feeling nothing in particular, except that deep inside a little worm started wriggling around and twisting its sharp head in his gut.
And the boy kept walking down, dancing a jig, shuffling to his own beat, and the white dust rose from his heels, and he was shouting at the top of his lungs, clearly, joyously, and festively—either a song or an incantation —and Redrick thought that this was the first time in the history of the quarry that a man went down there as though he were going to a party. And at first he did not listen to what his talking key was yelling, and then something clicked inside him and he heard:
“Happiness for everybody!… Free!… As much as you want!… Everybody come here!… There’s enough for everybody! Nobody will leave unsatisfied!… Free!… Happiness!… Free!”
And then he was suddenly silent, as though a huge fist had punched him in the mouth. And Redrick saw the transparent emptiness that was lurking in the shadow of the excavator’s bucket grab him, throw him up in the air, and slowly slowly twist him, like a housewife wringing her wash. Redrick had time to see one of his dusty shoes fall off his jerking leg and fly high above the quarry. Then he turned away and sat down. There wasn’t a single thought in his head, and he had somehow stopped sensing himself. Silence hung heavy in the air, particularly behind him, there on the road. Then he remembered the flask, without particular joy, but just as medicine that it was time to take. He unscrewed the cap and drank with tiny stingy sips, and for the first time in his life he wished that instead of liquor, the flask contained cold water.
Time passed, and more or less coherent thoughts came to him. Well, that’s it, he thought unwillingly. The
